Il blog di Antonio Daniele

This site uses Google's cookies for the services correlated to the Blogger platform and uses both Google's and StatCounter's cookies for traffic analysis.If you continue browsing, you consent to the use of these cookies.

Blog template update, current situation and service alerts

Greetings readers.
After almost a year since the publication of the current blog template, I've decided to fix some issues that I've discovered over time.

Two were the problems, both related to the blog pager (the section with the "older posts" and "newer posts" links).
The first problem was about the "older posts" link.
Previously, if you made a research and then reached the bottom of the page, you would have found the "older posts" link.
The problem with this is that when a research is done (that is, the "Go!" button is pressed and some result is found), the blog engine returns ALL the posts according to the user query, so there's no need for an "older posts" link.
In fact, If you clicked on that, you would have been redirected to a "Page not found" page.
The same thing would have happened if you decided to filter the posts by using tags.

The second problem was visible only when the links were not shown (this happens in a few sections, an example might be the pages that are not posts, like the Suggested material page or the About page).
The two links' disappearence was an intended behaviour, what it was not was the fact that the links' container was still shown, despite not containing any link.
Basically, you would have seen a "rectangle" without anything.

Both these issues are solved now:
If a research is performed or a tag is chosen, the "old posts" link does not appear anymore.
If the "newer posts" and "older posts" links are not present, so is their "container".

Other than that, I've added/changed some writings, to help the user to better browse and to provide more meaningful messages. I removed the flags' images from the language choice mechanism (they were replaced by links containing the texts "Read blog in English" and its Italian counterpart) and the "Popular posts" section.
As a last thing I've added a new small feature, just for fun, it's not perfect, but I like it.
I've implemented some "themes" (in reality, just different sets of colors), some of the "themes" were made to homage a family of computers that I had the possibility to use and to appreciate, despite my age.
Please notice that the language selection and the theme chooser reside in the section named "User settings", these mechanisms can be used only if Javascript is enabled.

Now it's time to talk about the "current situation" as mentioned in the title of the post.
Since February I managed to get new computers (yes, more than one, I've replaced the Galaxy Tab too) and I've passed one of the most difficult exams in my course, unfortunately though I'm not done yet, I still have work to do, and this is why I decided to change the post schedule in the first place.
I knew that it would take a while for me to be in a "good situation", in which I could relax a bit more (and so, dedicate some of my time to this blog).

About the "Programming course" project... well, unfortunately it still has a long way to go, in fact, I was not able to continue it too much after the "Service alert 12/07/2016" publication, in which I state clearly:

Before leaving you, I want to disclose something about next posts:
In fact, during spare time, I'm creating the remaining parts of the "Programming course".
I completed the scripts for the third and the fourth part, I even started writing the fifth one.
You could tell me that the third part already exists, and you're right, but if you saw it entirely, you'll understand that it's one of the worst videos I ever did, and that's why I'll restart from there.

The fifth part is not completed yet, and to my dismay, as I was writing and searching for information, I've gathered so much of it to the point I thought it was pointless to continue, since I would never be able to say all those things in single videos (even if splitted in parts).
Of course I don't want to get rid of the information in excess just to simplify the videos' creation. I THOUGHT the "course" this way, as a generic programming course, in which, despite being it for beginners, all the different aspects are treated in detail (not a huge level of detail of course, let's say an average level of detail).

While I'm still not sure about this, I don't think I will produce videos in relation to the "course" for the reasons I already stated.
What I'll do for sure is to transform the "excessive detailed scripts" into a sort of book, or volume if you prefer, in pdf.
I can do this since all I have to do is write, I don't have to worry about how much information I can handle.
I started creating a draft of this conversion, the idea fascinates me, but I need more time for this, I'll see what I can do this summer.

With these facts written in this post, you'll understand that it will take some time for me to come out with new videos and in general, with new material for this blog.

So we get to the last part of the post's title, that is "service alerts".
I never thought of this before, but theoretically speaking, a blog is a diary right? You're supposed to write your thoughts and whatever you feel like (of course up to a certain point).
My point is, why not using the actual blog to publish service alerts instead of social networks? I mean have you seen the content's length of some of them?
They might be okay as posts!

For this, I've decided that, from now on, the service alerts are going to be served from the blog, as normal posts, of course there will be a particular tag indicating that the post is a service alert.
This post is the first "service alert post".